Hydrocarbon conversions and particularly the reactions of olefins constitute a very important section of organic chemistry. The 1-olefins can be polymerized to high polymers, they can be alkylated to high octane fuels and they can be oligomerized to oils.
Lubricating oils have been refined in recent years to match the increasing demands concerning their performance. Not only many additives have been developed for lubricating oils, but also entirely synthetic oils have been produced which exhibit special properties not found in oils produced from crude petroleum alone.
One of the key features in many chemical reactions is the desired purity of the end product. This feature is particularly difficult to achieve in hydrocarbon conversion reactions. The larger the hydrocarbon molecules are, the more difficult it becomes to perform a reaction with only one or two reaction products resulting therefrom. Particularly, producing a hydrocarbon oil with a well defined molecular weight and structure is a continuing goal in the petrochemical industry. Such pure oils can then be used as such or blended into other mixtures with reproducible and desirable properties.
As a general rule, olefins become less reactive the larger their molecular weight and the more the double bond is surrounded by atom groups larger than hydrogen. Thus, generally, 1-olefins are more susceptible to for instance dimerization than internal olefins and lighter olefins oligomerize more readily than heavier olefins.